Twist of Fate: Heritage
by whoa nellie
Summary: PWP continuation of the Twist of Fate series Just a quiet evening in Chakotay and Sassy's quarters.


Title: Twist of Fate: Heritage

Author: Whoa Nellie

Series: Voyager

New 1/1

Rating: PG-13

Codes: C/f

Summary: PWP Just a quiet evening in Chakotay and Sassy's quarters.

Author's Notes: Feel free to archive to any pertinent site. Reminder: the endearment aalm is a Mayan word for heart with the connotation of soul or the essence of a person.

Previous stories from the Twist of Fate storyline (in order): Blessings of the Sky Spirits, Wyrd, What Comes Naturally, Fresh Perspective, Culinary Delights, Chaos Theory, Unforeseen Circumstance, A Matter of Definition, Love and Copulation, Million Kilometer High Club, Comings and Goings, Bare Necessities, Vulnerability, When in Rome, Reporting for Duty, Rights and Wrongs, Proportional Response, and A Force to be Reckoned With.

Background: Ceshlyta is Chakotay's wife and soulmate. She is descended from the Inheritors through a different tribe and was joined with Chakotay in a wedding at the Temple of the Sky Spirits before they put her on Voyager. She was a Professor of Botany on Earth when the Sky Spirits joined their souls, intertwined their life paths and put her on Voyager. Her nickname, used by most of the other crew members, is Sassy.

Acknowledgements: Paramount owns all the marbles, we just have a lot more fun playing with them.

Feedback is always appreciated, posted or e-mail.

This is an edited-down version. If you are 18 or older and are interested in the unedited version, it can be found at Whoa Nellie's Sci Fi Romance Fanfiction website in the Twist of Fate series of stories.

HERITAGE

Chakotay sighed and checked the corridor for other crew members before re-entering the turbolift. The modifications had been completed and five small, family suites had been created with Ceshlyta and he moving into one shortly after their completion. They were comfortably settled in and were starting to prepare the second bedroom for the baby; unfortunately, he hadn't quite gotten out of the habit of heading for his old quarters, especially when he was distracted or tired. He'd managed to catch himself so far, but he was dreading the day he actually entered and surprised Harry or Seven. They had gotten permission to move into his former quarters together since it was larger than Harry's quarters and could more easily accommodate Seven's regeneration alcove. He called for his new deck and dragged his attention away from the most recent letters from home.

Adjusting the tray in his arms, he chuckled at himself. It was understandable for Sassy to be a little scattered, more than five months into the pregnancy her hormones were all over the place; of course those hadn't been her quarters as long as they'd been his. Not that it made the occasional lapses any less embarrassing. He'd stopped by the garden after his shift to meet her for dinner, but Gerron had told him that she'd left early. After checking the computer and finding her in their quarters, he got them both some dinner and was heading home for a quiet evening with his wife. He'd been reading his letter and called for his old deck out of habit. Their new quarters were dark when he entered so he called for low lights and set the tray on the table. He found her curled up on the bed taking a nap. Her long, dark hair was still braided but she'd obviously taken the time to change into a sundress before lying down. He could just make out the slight swell of her belly through the soft, flowing fabric.

"Are you just going to stand there and ogle me or come over here and give me a kiss?" she muttered, her voice still thick with sleep.

Chakotay slipped his boots off and walked over to sit on the edge of the bed. "I could just stand there and ogle you, but I would love to give you a kiss. I didn't mean to wake you, aalm; how are you feeling?"

Sassy rolled onto her back and smiled up at her handsome husband. "Fine, I was a little tired earlier and Gerron said he'd finish up in the garden for me so I came back here to take a short nap. I guess I slept longer than I intended to."

Cradling her growing belly with his hand, he leaned over to capture her lips in long, tender caress. He had to force himself to pull back before things got out of hand. He wanted her more than ever, but he could never quite forget that those changes in her body were his unborn son. Whenever they did have sex, he took care to be as gentle as possible and it was heartwarmingly sweet, especially afterward when he laid there holding her in his arms. Just as he sat back up, he felt movement under his hand and he grinned. "Hello to you, too, son."

"We could actually decide on a name for him," she pointed out as she grabbed onto him and used him to pull herself into a sitting position. As happy and excited as she was about the baby, she was also uncomfortable and getting more so by the day. Her balance was off, not much but enough to make pruning the trees and climbing into them to harvest their produce difficult. After the first time she barely managed to avoid falling out of an apple tree, she had asked Chakotay for help and turned those chores over to the crew members assigned to the garden. She spent more and more of her day going to the bathroom and also got tired more easily, either going to bed early or, like today, taking a nap before dinner. Her herbs were helping, but there was only so much they could do for her pregnancy symptoms. Now that the queasiness had finally passed, she also was developing quite an appetite. "Do I smell food?"

"It's from the mess hall," Chakotay replied, getting up to retrieve the tray. "So that may be an overly optimistic description of it, but yes, you do smell something. Stay there and take it easy, I'll bring it in and we can eat in bed. We got letters from home today; you can read yours over dinner."

Sassy just sighed. He was a wonderful husband, very sweet and attentive; however, as her pregnancy progressed he was becoming more and more of a mother hen. She reached over to the bedside table for the PADD there. "I downloaded the material on Mayan mythology from the computer to try to get some ideas for a name. I was thinking it would be nice to choose something traditional since his life here on Voyager won't be all that conducive to a traditional life; at least his name could provide a connection to his heritage."

"What do you mean?" he asked from the other room. He re-entered the bedroom and settled himself on the bed before putting the tray down between them.

"It's hard enough for me to keep to tradition and maintain a connection with the natural world here," she said. "Our son will need to find a place for himself on Voyager and it will be difficult for him to do that and live a traditional life--even by the less techno-phobic standards of my people. You balance between two worlds, he will be born of both of those worlds and he will need to choose how much of each world to incorporate into his life. He will learn of both, but I understand that he may choose to live more in the modern world than our traditional world. That's why I want to give him a name that will always connect him to his heritage no matter what."

Chakotay offered her the PADD from the tray, exchanging it for the one she held. "Did I ever tell you about Kar--or rather Jal Karden? He was a young, Kazon boy I met shortly after I ended up in the Delta Quadrant. Among the Kazon, males have to earn their name by killing someone in battle or dying in battle themselves. He couldn't understand how a name could be freely given as a gift. I've been thinking about him recently, probably because he made me think more about my name and what it meant than I ever had before. I'd like to think that our son will feel that way about his own name."

Taking a bite of her dinner, she began reading the letter from her family. It was mostly from her mother, but several other family members had contributed paragraphs. "Our families have met," she told Chakotay. "Your cousin and his family spent a weekend at the family compound on Harbinger recently; my mother promises to try to get some vid of the weekend into the next data stream."

"My cousin mentioned that they'd enjoyed meeting your family," he acknowledged. He began calling out some possible names from the mythology database. "Ik--no, that's too much like the sounds made on a daily basis in the mess hall even if it does actually mean wind. What about Imix, that name is associated with beginnings."

"It's also an earth monster," Sassy pointed out as she made a note about something she wanted to reply to in the letter she was reading. "Imix does have an association with earth and vegetation so I did consider it, but I was a little concerned about the fact that it's a monster."

Chakotay grinned. "There are those who would argue that it's a fitting name for children and if he turns out anything like his father, my father would find justice in it."

She reached over to pull up an entry on the PADD. "In that case, given his sassy mother and contrary father, we might as well name him Huehuecoyotl."

"Old coyote?" he laughed for several minutes. "God of cleverness and trickery who wreaked mischief, especially with sexual matters. That would be priceless, although maybe we could just name him ch'okcoyotl, young coyote, instead. Here we go, Kawil."

"Being a bit literal, aren't you? Naming your progeny for the god of lineage and descent?"

Chakotay took a bite of his dinner. "This is harder than I thought it would be; who could guess how much thought parents put into a name."

"Not all parents," she noted idly. "I've got a couple of ideas, but I'd like to give you a chance to think about it and we can compare lists."

"Fair enough."

Sassy read the next paragraph in her letter and started chuckling softly. "My sister, Kaiya, the surgeon is telling me to forget nature and tradition when I go into labor and demand painkillers. She assures me that there's no proscription against using chemicals to ease the pain of childbirth. She even offered to include a prescription in the next data stream ordering the doctor to administer them if she needed to."

"Using modern medicine to interfere with a time-honored, natural process?" he asked with a mischievous wink. "Shocking!"

She arched an eyebrow in bemusement. "If you recall, some of those old ways include men cutting their penis with an obsidian blade or stingray spine to bleed themselves in symbolic gestures for various reasons."

"All hail modern medicine," he avowed. He couldn't quite stop his hand from hovering over his own body; almost as if to protect himself from that particular bit of history. Redirecting his attention to the PADD of Mayan mythology, he continued searching for a good, strong name for his son. "Kinich?"

"I considered that," she agreed, "as well as Balam for his jaguar persona. Itzamna was also on my initial list given his benevolence, although its translation to iguana house gave me pause."

Chakotay stopped browsing for a moment. "What kind of naming tradition does your family have?"

"With regard to my parents, twisted; although, to be fair grandmother wasn't much more serious when she named mother," Sassy laughed. "Mother's name, Mansi, is an Asian term for plucked flower and I got the distinct impression from grandmother that it had something to do with the fact that mother was born slightly less than nine months after the wedding. Father's name, Jacy, is a word for moon and his brothers and sisters--and mother's sister, my Aunt Airlia, all have names that refer to the heavens in some way or another. Airlia means ethereal, while two of my aunts, Neoma and Tayen, have names that both mean new moon and Uncle Altair is named for the word for star. Their origins are a mix of ancient earth languages--including our native traditions as well as Asian."

"What about your brother and sisters?" he asked. "You said that your name came from the word for starlight. Does Kaiya have any significance?"

She just chuckled and nodded her head. "All of my siblings have names that relate to their conception. My parents wanted each of our names to be both unique and significant to us. I didn't want to know the story behind my name and neither father nor mother would tell the stories behind the other names to any but the individual, but it's not hard to guess. Kaiya means forgiveness; Etsuko, she's the zoologist, means child of delight; my other sister, Miakoda, means power of the moon; and my brother's name is the best of all, Kane, which means multiple accomplishments or doubly-accomplished."

"Were those names your mother's idea or your father's?" he asked, laughing.

"I think all of our names were a mutual decision," she said. "They both have quite the wicked sense of humor. I was just leaning more toward something from our mutual heritage for the names of our children--if you agree, anyway. If you had something else in mind--"

Chakotay silenced her with a finger across her lips. "I think it's a wonderful idea."

Returning to her letter, she tried to suppress the strong homesickness. She could hear each of the family members who had included portions of the letter; voices and faces she hadn't thought of in quite a while were suddenly flooding back. She would never regret her choice to travel this path, but these monthly letters gave her a connection to her family that she'd thought was lost forever. The last paragraph in the letter was from her father.

"Here we go, Backlum Chaam."

"I am not naming my son after the god of masculine sexual prowess," she vetoed without even looking up from the letter she had returned to reading. "Besides, that might create an unrealistic expectation for him later on."

Chakotay grinned. "If he takes after his old man, it'll just be accurate." When Sassy didn't offer a retort, he realized that her face had tightened into an expression of pain. He reached out to caress her cheek. "Something wrong?"

"No," she murmured, "not really."

"That was convincing."

She nuzzled his hand for a moment, just taking in his warmth. "Starfleet released the report on their investigation into my disappearance."

He leaned over to kiss her cheek. "I know, they included a copy to Captain Janeway. Planetary sensors on Earth detected a micro-wormhole in your vicinity at the time of your disappearance. What's wrong with that?"

"It just is," she didn't really know how to put it into words. "Appearing here like I did was a powerful, mystical experience and my beliefs helped me cope with everything. Now I see this scientific explanation for the phenomenon and it just feels like a huge letdown. The supernatural, magical twist of fate that brought us together has been reduced to the random firing of molecules in the universe." Tears began streaming down her face.

Chakotay moved the tray over to the table on his side of the bed and slid closer to her, pulling her into his arms. She was normally so upbeat that it took a lot of strain to send her into tears; however, as her pregnancy had progressed, she'd been bursting into tears over almost everything--good and bad. In this case he was fairly sure these were not happy tears. "Mi aalm, do you have any idea what kind of achievement it is to even be able to create a stable micro-wormhole? Somebody went to a great deal of time and trouble to create that wormhole specifically to grab you and bring you to the Delta Quadrant."

"This just takes all of the mystery out of it," she sobbed. "It's not as magical if you can explain it scientifically."

"Internal sensors here didn't detect any micro-wormholes or other spatial phenomenon," he pointed out soothingly. "So that report might explain how you left Earth, but it doesn't explain our wedding ceremony, our wedding bands or your arrival here and if anybody could have found a scientific explanation, it would have been Tuvok and Seven."

She considered that, sniffling. "True."

"This report is just a reminder of those first weeks you spent here trying to adjust and how bad I was about all of it," he offered. "The fact that you're a bit on the hormonal side is just making it worse."

Sassy abruptly started giggling. "Telling me that I'm over-reacting is probably not your wisest course of action here given our very recent discussion about cutting penises with sharp objects."

"Made you laugh," he said as he tenderly unbound her braid and combed his fingers through the long, dark tresses. "To be fair, I didn't really think about the possibility that it could have made you angry so I'm glad it amused you. Changing the subject, what baby names were you thinking of?"

She stroked his face tenderly. "I have two that I haven't been able to choose between. Xamen, after Xamen Ek; mostly because of his benevolence and the fact that he's depicted with Chac so often. We never really talked about the history of your name so I don't even know if Chakotay is in honor of Chac or not but if it is, then naming your son Xamen would be fitting. Of course Xamen was the god of the North Star and long-distance traders which would be significant for Voyager's travels and fit with my father's side of the family naming children for aspects of the heavens."

"I like that," he murmured softly, nuzzling her cheek. "What's your other option?"

"Yaxche'."

"The World Tree?" he asked.

She nodded. "I was looking for something that would be significant to his heritage. Xamen would be good in terms of a connection with his roots as well as his father. Yaxche's significance in linking parts of the universe seemed to be a good reflection of his very existence; linking the modern world with the traditional world of his heritage. He is our first as the World Tree is first in terms of a cosmic center and a tree cannot live without roots as I was hoping his name would be for him."

"Why don't we combine them?" Chakotay suggested. "Xamenche' in honor of both Xamen and Yaxche'."

A smile spread across her face and she kissed his shoulder. "That's perfect, roots in his traditional world with a star to always guide him on his path."

FINIS

NOTES ON MAYAN MYTHOLOGY:

Xamen Ek, or Ah Chicum Ek was the god of the North Star (xamen means "north"). He was portrayed with a distinctive snub-nose and black markings on his head, and is thus frequently associated with, or identified as, the MONKEY-FACED GOD; as such, he ruled the Maya day Chuen ("monkey). His glyph resembles the head of a monkey and signifies "north". He was a benevolent deity, often depicted alongside Chac. As the north star he was the patron and guide of merchants whose long-distance trading networks were of such importance to Maya civilization. In the latitudes of the Yucatan and Peten regions of Mayan culture, the North Star is the star that holds its position throughout the year. Xamen Ek's intercession and goodwill were invoked by prayers and offerings of pom incense (the resin from the copal tree) at special roadside altars.

The Maya World Tree, Yaxche' or Kapok, was the Ceibe. Yaxche' itself signifies 'first' or 'green' tree, both terms being appropriate: first in terms of a cosmic center and green as the Maya color associated with a central place. The great world tree was perceived to link the parts or levels of the universe, with its roots anchored in the underworld, its trunk linking the earth to underworld and heavens, and its branches spreading into the sky. A similar image prevailed among the cultures of central Mesoamerica and similar association with the underworld, the earth and the sky are described in several Aztec codices. Throughout Mesoamerica, the world tree was regarded as the central, or fifth, direction and of equal if not greater importance than north, east, south and west.


End file.
